<p>Im looking at these colleges for engineering
(thinking BioEng for UCSD and EE for the rest but not sure)</p>
<p>UIUC
Cornell
UCSD, UCLA, UCB
Case Western
Carnegie Mellon
Harvey Mudd </p>
<h2>if anyone has additional suggestions for colleges please tell me!</h2>
<p>I live in CA.</p>
<p>freshman
English I => B/A
Honors Algebra II => B+/A-
Japanese I => A-/A
Honors Physics => B/B+
World History => A-/A
Computer Science => A/(N/a)
Acting => (N/a)/A+
Freshman GPA 3.81 Weighted</p>
<p>sophomore - Honors Geo(summer course) => A-/A-
English II => A-/A-
Honors Pre-Calc => A-/B+
Japanese II => A-/A-
Honors Chem => A-/A
Econ => A/(N/a)
Programming => (N/a)/A+
Visual Arts => A-/A
Sophomore GPA - 3.99 Weighted</p>
<p>junior -
English III => A-/B+
AP Calc AB => A-/A
APUSH => A-/A-
Hon Bio => A/A
Hon Japanese III => B+/A-
AP Comp Sci AB =>A/A-
Junior First Semester GPA - 4.15 Weighted</p>
<p>Senior
AP Physics C
AP Calc C
AP Psych
Advanced Topics Comp Sci
Electronics
Engineering
Dante
Speculative Fiction</p>
<p>SAT
770 M
790 W
650 CR (...)
total 2210</p>
<p>SAT II
800 US History
730 Chem
790 MathIIC</p>
<p>AP
Calc AB 5
Comp Sci AB 4
US History 5</p>
<p>Some lame extracurriculars such as...
Key Club (10, 11)
Electronics Club (11, 12)</p>
<h2>table tennis (this is a real sport btw) various tournament awards</h2>
<p>the way my GPA is calculated is that B is 3.0, B+ is 3.3, A- is 3.7, A is 4.0, etc. plus .5 for honors or APs</p>
<p>wowx,
for hmc, demographics mean a lot for strong applicants. if you are a white male, hmc is a reach. if you are a female minority, hmc is a match.</p>
<p>You need to realize that the UCs will compute your UC GPA by only counting 4 year-long honors courses as extra points. You get no extras for the other honors you took. So this reduces your overall weighted GPA as they compute it. Fortunately, your SAT Is and (especially) SAT IIs are quite good and make up for the difference. Then comes your ECs (extracurriculars) which push your chances back down again.</p>
<p>The same applies to Cornell and Harvey Mudd. Without decent ECs, they will look at your test scores and go--nice, but....
And then they will look at all the A minuses (instead of As) and go--too bad.</p>
<p>As far as the other schools--
UIUC--match
Case Western--match to slight reach
Carnegie Mellon--match (but maybe not because of the ECs).</p>
<p>Personally, I'd apply to a few of the other campuses of the University of California as safe matches/safeties--just in case. I would think that two or three of the top ones (UCSB, UCI, UCD and maybe UCSC) would suit you also.</p>
<p>Yes, I consider Cornell and Harvey Mudd as reaches for you. Reaches are schools were your chances of acceptance are less than 40% </p>
<p>Slight reach means that your chances of acceptance are less than 50%, but not less than about 40 to 45%. Sometimes it means that with a good essay and good recommendations, you will get in despite the odds.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear your mom is so tough--but I'm sure she just wants the best for you. I presume she is probably unaware that both the colleges you mentioned (UCI and UCSB) rank as being among the top 45 national universities in the country. I guess money is not the problem then--so apply to someplace like USC or Georgetown to make your mom happy. They are both ranked in the top 30 nationally.</p>
<p>Is it really that easy to get into the BioE program at UCSD? Since it is supposed to be one of the best for BioE, I thought it would be much harder to get in.</p>